It may seem like a cop-out to praise all three of these very different books, but they take wildly divergent paths to being equally terrific… Barkskins by Annie Proulx…A big, bold, ambitious book that practically has “Great Novel” stamped on the book cover. It’s about two “barkskins” (tree cutters) who settle in New France and…
Author: Alabama Liberal
300 at 30: Episode 12–Binge, Diet, Exercise, Quit, Repeat
Binge, diet, exercise, quit, repeat–the vicious cycle of weight loss, and how to avoid it and that pre-diet binge meal…
300 at 30: Episode 11–Why Most Diets Fail
How can your diet last longer? Rethinking food into chemical processes (and drugs)…with budget-busting visual aid!
300 at 30: Episode 10–My Name is [Food Addict]
Are you a food addict? Listen to my checklist and see how many apply to you…
300 at 30: Episode 9–Sugar, the Abusive Relationship You Never Wanted
Sugar is a Helluva a drug…find out how I made my July weight loss goal, and then gained all of it back in August…
“Hell or High Water” Is the Perfect Film to End the Summer
In a season of big-budget flops, “Hell or High Water” is the most purely enjoyable movie of the Summer. On a budget less than one-tenth that of “Suicide Squad,” “Independence Day 2,” and various other trash spectacles promising thrills but leaving me with a numb feeling—like I’d just watched someone else have the time of their…
Movie Review: “Don’t Think Twice” Perhaps the Best Comedy About Comedy
As someone who’s on the peripheral edge of being a comedian, I’ve always sought-out films, TV shows, books, or anything that can give us a peek behind the The Order of the Clowns, an exclusive unisex fraternity that has been breached in films from the biopic “Lenny” to Seinfeld’s documentary “Comedian” to Marc Maron’s podcast…
Movie Review: Can “Jason Bourne” Get Beyond Himself?
A few years back, when Jeremy Renner tried his hand as a Bourne-replacement in “The Bourne Legacy” I wrote an article about just how damn similar all the Bourne movies were—same basic plot, American character-actor CIA baddie, more internatonal-character actor rival assassin, outlandish car chase through a city towards the end with more hand-to-hand fights…
Movie Review: Kubo and the Two Strings
A beautifully-animated movie that will probably appeal more to adults than kids. What Works: The visual style is the main draw here, and it is enhanced by an actual theater experience, getting to see all the incredibly nuanced visual details. From the movie’s opening moments—an immense ocean wave sweeping over the audience—it lulls you into a…
Movie Review: Sausage Party
It’s so tough to review a movie that does everything exactly right until the ending, and then blows it. Do you grade the 95% of the movie you really loved or the last 5% you rememebered as the last thing you saw before leaving the theater? What Works: Seth Rogen wanted to make a movie about the stupidity…
Movie Review: “Nerve” Just Might Make You Feel Young Again
Sure, sure, sure, maaaaaybe it would have been nice to post this review back when the movie was in theaters. If you’re into that sort of thing, but why be so predictable as all that? What Works: The movie is about a virtual game of “Dare” (there’s very little truth) where people offer you money to…
Quick Reviews: Race, Eddie the Eagle
Two films about Olympians that—bizarrely—were released back in February, when nobody yet was caring about Rio. Why didn’t the studios release these movies closer to the actual games? A question that may have no answer… Race…Solid, if a little sleepy. Jason Sudekis phones it in as Jesse Owens’ grouchy coach, and you never really see…
Quick Reviews: Finest Hour, Hail Caesar, Barbershop 3
Every now and then, a film slips through the cracks–sometimes I don’t see it, sometimes I don’t want to see it (until later), or sometimes I see it but am just not inspired to write a review until months after a film is relevant–but I catch up with it eventually…If these three have anything in…